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He's had a successful talk show but I can't think of anything at all he's influenced.

He influenced the entire evolution of radio from DJs just playing music to all of the "morning zoos" and every other guy doing comedy on the radio.

In October 1992, Stern became the first to have the number one morning radio show in New York and Los Angeles simultaneously. In the New York market The Howard Stern Show was the highest-rated morning program for seven consecutive years between 1994 and 2001. In 1994, Billboard magazine added the "Nationally Syndicated Air Personality of the Year" category to its annual radio awards based on entertainment value, creativity and ratings success. Stern was awarded the title from 1994 to 2002.

Savoy - Thanks for the essay on concept albums. I don't know the music of any of the people you listed before rock. I know the names, but not the music, except for Sinatra, whose music I don't like. Your comment on Sgt. Pepper was what I was channelling. I remember it coming out, and people calling it the first concept album, but, unless I and others have the timing wrong (which is possible), Volunteers of America was released, or recorded, or something, just ahead of Sgt. Pepper. Beatles fans were, at the time, acquiring a bad reputation for claiming that the Fab Four had invented practically everything. As far as I was able to ferret out, the only thing they invented (and they may have been late on this, too) was the idea of marketing albums to teenagers as the PRIMARY method of marketing, rather than focusing on singles, with albums as an afterthought. I remember The Ventures as "that guitar-driven band." They were known, to my teenage generation, simply for their guitar sound and how similar their songs sounded to each other (not a slam, BTW; the same is true of Buddy Holly and no one was giving his memory grief about it). Pet Sounds and Freak Out! (both of which I loved the first time I heard them) were considered, by my turning-20s contemporaries, as being sui generis. Pet Sounds was "that new, weird Beach Boys album that is getting all this critical acclaim, but which the Beach Boys themselves couldn't perform live without a recorded track or a small orchestra, and which is causing a split in the band between Brian and everyone else, especially Mike Love." Zappa was just considered to be Zappa. New and great, and nothing like anything else we had ever heard and unlikely to spread out into a genre because no one else could write like that.

The big argument about Rock Operas, when Tommy came out, was whether The Who had invented the genre with Tommy, or whether "A Quick One While He's Away" counts, although it doesn't occupy even one whole side of its album.

With regard to Chuck Berry, I'm probably talking past everyone else. I focus on the lyrics. Berry was the first artist I've ever heard who focused his lyrics on the troubles of being a teenager. That's culturally significant to what rock and roll was and still is. As far as the formal music, I would imagine that he was well versed in country, western, jazz, blues, and R&B. He was a professional musician; he almost had to be familiar with all that, and it all fermented together in his head to generate his music. But it's the importance of his lyrics that is most important, IMO, to developing what we now call "Rock."

I get exposed in my lack of older music knowledge when the term "rockabilly" comes up. The first time I ever heard the term was when the DJs here in STL attached it to Buddy Holly (with or without The Crickets), Eddie Cochrane's Summertime Blues, Buddy Knox's Party Doll, and Tommy Roe. Jim told me, years ago, that this was just an illusion caused by the times. We Baby Boomers were a huge audience, and Buddy Holly had many chart hits, while the earlier people you mentioned didn't have that exposure to us (as opposed to any other generation). I also have never even heard the name "Wynonie Harris" before, which may well be related to his(?) not being in the Hall.

There may be a geographical bias as well. I looked at your list of Alan Freed's 1952 songs, and, while I have heard music by many of the groups you list, I have NEVER heard ANY of the songs you listed. I only heard later stuff. I think that it would be no surprise to find out that STL was a year or two behind 1952 in terms of recognizing rock and roll. The version of the story of rock as presented by STL DJs was that the term itself was an old blues term for sex, and the genre got started by Bill Haley and the Comets in Blackboard Jungle. For all I know, the DJs didn't know any more than that. I was 13 years old and had almost no knowledge of music history. I took their word for it, until I started to read a little rock criticism, met Don Malcolm, who knows a lot about music, and met that friend I mentioned, Jim.

I, personally, am very glad you're taking the time to do these posts for a group of baseball analysts. You apparently have serious music history credentials. I'm learning stuff that, otherwise, I'd go to my grave without having any idea. So, thanks! - Brock

With regard to Chuck Berry, I'm probably talking past everyone else. I focus on the lyrics. Berry was the first artist I've ever heard who focused his lyrics on the troubles of being a teenager. That's culturally significant to what rock and roll was and still is. As far as the formal music, I would imagine that he was well versed in country, western, jazz, blues, and R&B. He was a professional musician; he almost had to be familiar with all that, and it all fermented together in his head to generate his music. But it's the importance of his lyrics that is most important, IMO, to developing what we now call "Rock."

I have no interest in lyrics other than phonetically.

That's probably one reason why I prefer James Brown to Bob Dylan, for instance.

Savoy - Thanks for even more info! I didn't remember Sgt. Pepper and Volunteers as being that far apart, but I have no reason to doubt you (or Wikipedia), so I guess what I was hearing was just people who were getting disgusted with Beatles fans giving them credit for everything. Either that, or the Airplane was doing Volunteers live in 1967, but didn't record it until 1969. That I have GRAVE doubts about. It's true that some of the acid rock bands didn't get recorded until they'd been playing for 2-3 years, but the Airplane had already released albums, and Grace Slick didn't join the band until about 1967. I doubt that they were sitting on a concept album that they were playing live for over 2 years.

Comment #110 was particularly revealing to me. I'm a little tone deaf, so formal music analysis is beyond me, but I have, essentially, a Master's Degree in theater analysis (the label on the degree is "English", but that's a lie), so I gravitate towards weird noises, percussion, and lyrics. I am qualified to say things like Chuck Berry's lyrics changed or invented the cultural identity of rock and roll, to the point where people who didn't get into it until I did thought that he had invented the idea of teenager music (which, as far as I know, he did do, and I have checked that one out, looking for teenager lyrics in earlier artists and not finding any). Even swing and the Lindy Hop dance genre aren't overtly teenager music, although that's clearly the audience. A love song is a love song. A song about the frustrations of high school classes and the joy and release of putting a dime into a jukebox is teenager stuff, impossible to confuse with anything else. That's Chuck's contribution, as far as I'm concerned. But if you don't follow lyrics, you aren't going to see that any more that I can follow a key change.

It's worth saying that I've had this issue with people with real music talent before. I go to a lot of concerts with a woman called Fiondel, who was accepted into Julliard as a singer, but there wasn't money, so she couldn't go. She can't follow a drummer, because she is so distracted by melodies and harmonies. I can pick a drum line out of anything except that multi-guitar version of metal that sounds, to me, like a loud angry bee (Iron Maiden), but Fiondel assures me that there are layered guitar harmonies going on that I can't hear. So, I'll ask her if the singer can actually sing and she'll ask me if the drummer and bassist are any good and why. We both get to appreciate more of the music that way. So I can tell you with some assurance that the best-drummed Black Sabbath album is the one where they used Bev Bevan on drums, and you can tell me whether they could actually play their guitars and whether Ozzie Osborne can really sing, or if he's just really good at selling lyrics. (For those of you who don't know, Bevan was the drummer in The Move, which was Jeff Lynne's first band, and a very good one. Sabbath was without a drummer at the time, and Bevan was willing to do an album, although he wasn't interested in joining the band in general.) - Brock

I want to emphasize what Chris said in #116 - If you're having fun watching us get ourselves educated by each other about rock and roll (I now want real bad to go to a rock show with Savoy (do you live anywhere near STL?)), imagine how much fun we can be discussing baseball players, which we all actually know something about. And all you have to do is post a prelim here if you haven't voted before, and then finally vote. BIG HELP NOTE, or at least it was to me. You have a weekend to post that prelim, and you can go over to the Ballot thread and find several fine final ballots already posted, with reasons for the choices, and get a general idea of who is saying what about whom. Helps your prelim a lot, to loot us for whatever we've been saying and then add your own agreements/disagreements. We do NOT consider that to be cheating in any way. It doesn't even take that much time; no one is expecting everyone to go through the laborious processes that Ileiam does. But, if you find his list very plausible, just say that you agree with him a lot and start composing that prelim, using his lists as a starter kit in the analysis. No one here minds if you base your analysis on culling and combining what is already there. You're not in for any plagiarism suits: Loot anything you can get from our ballots at will. Who knows, you may make a Big Discovery that has eluded us for years. We promise to be grateful, if not dead.

This is absurd, it's like saying that Johnny Lydon was just an angrier Frank Sinatra

This whole discussion is absurd. People, including me, should have stopped engaging Savoy when he said he was offended that some people didn't list list black musicians playing black music among their favorites. He seems to be pushing some sort of agenda, but it's unclear what he hopes to achieve by trying to get people to admit that anything good about modern pop music was first invented by the blacks.

This whole discussion is absurd. People, including me, should have stopped engaging Savoy when he said he was offended that some people didn't list list black musicians playing black music among their favorites.

Would you say the same thing if I was offended that there were no black players in MLB in 1942?

Would you say the same thing if I was offended that there were no black players in MLB in 1942?

No, because being offended by institutional racism, and being offended by one's taste in music are two completely different things. That you seem to think they are the same, or even remotely similar, speaks volumes. I imagine most posters here have never attended an A.M.E. church service either. Does that offend you as well?

No, because being offended by institutional racism, and being offended by one's taste in music are two completely different things.

Whites who only listen to white music have gotten that way from subtle institutional racism. They grew up listening to radio stations that would only play music by white acts (and Hendrix).

Can you tell me why it's okay for a so called "Rock" station to play records by the Kinks, but not play "In The Midnight Hour" by Wilson Pickett?

Soul music from the 1960s is just as much a part of rock as any white guitar oriented music from any era.

Check the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame, it jammed with soul artists from the 1960s.

Somewhere along the line white people decided that "Rock" music was mainly just played by "White guys with guitars."

That could not be further from the truth.

Run-DMC sounds much more like the origins of rock and roll (Bo Diddley) than Yes or ELP or Joni Mitchell, but those white acts are all acepted by whites as rock and roll while most whites deny that hip hop is part of rock.

Thankfully the Hall Of Fame knows better, and Run-DMC has ben inducted, as well as Public Enemy.

Every so called "Classic Rock" station plays the Kinks but does not play Wilson Pickett.

I don't listen to the radio at all, but clearly the AOR stations of the 70s and 80s and 90s set the template that subtly said that "Rock" was played by white guys with guitars, and that black music of the day (Stevie Wonder, Earth, Wind and Fire, Kool and the Gang, etc...) was not part of rock.

When I was in high school (1971-1975) there were only 3-4 kids who liked black music, out of about 1300 in the all white school. It was all Led Zep, ELP, Tull, Elton John, The Who, Chicago, Cat Stevens etc. I know this because I surveyed the entire school for a class project.

"Lubinsky was always on the prowl for new talent, but working for him was a double-edged sword that cut deeply into his stable of mostly African American artists. On the one hand Lubinsky offered the chance to record for a growing jazz label and the promise of national exposure; on the other hand, he grossly underpaid his artists and was (quietly) despised by his roster..." - Black and Blue: the Redd Foxx Story, by Michael Starr

"I was familiar with the infamous Herman Lubinsky ... He was notorious for stiffing his artists. In truth he simply underpaid them, and took advantage of their temporary needs in order to acquire their best work for the price of a quick fix (jazz) or a lapsed car note (gospel). ... A better revenge occurred when the albums began to sell in the millions, and Savoy's publishing company was obliged to finally pay up, even though in several cases it was the widows and orphans who benefited." - Anthony Heilbut, "The Fan Who Knew Too Much"

"Diligent young songwriter Clyde Otis, up from Mississippi, remembered pitching his first songs to Savoy: 'Herman recorded a couple of my songs ... For any song that I gave him, all I would get is the twenty-five dollars up front. That was it; I never got any royalties from him, not ever. I thought that was how it was supposed to be. He took the copyright, everything, oh yeah [laughs]." - Record Makers and Breakers, by John Broven

"The label's owner, Herman Lubinsky, is infamous for his underpayment, or even nonpayment, of everyone with whom he worked. ... Lee Magid, who worked for Lubinsky, calls him 'a horror story ... At a time when the business was run by cheap sons of #######, this son of a ##### made the others seem generous.'" - Faith in Time: the Life of Jimmy Scott, by David Ritz

SavoyBG Posted: January 31, 2013 at 12:32 PM (#4359027)

I don't vote for awards based on the size of a player's paycheck. I doubt your list of favorite records was based on units sold.

Yes, my grandfather was a scum bag. He stayed married to my grandmother, but he lived somewhere else with a girlfriend. I only saw him about 8 times in my life. He did not attend my bar mitzvah, he sent me a $25 bond. He did not even know who I was when I called him once, and I was his first grandchild.

Herman was not unique in not paying his artists. Read Tommy James book about Morris Levy. And it wasn't a black/white thing either. One of the worst of all label owners was black gangster Don Robey in Houston, who owned Duke-Peacock.

Jackie Wilson was dangled out of a window by Brunswick owner Nat Tarnapol's men to force him to resign with the label.

@BJHanke:
Like DL from MN, my intro to Wire and The Jam (and pretty much all music from the late 70s) came years later, as I was quite young back then. And agreed with DL's recommendation on Wire to start with Pink Flag. They've got quite a number of albums in 3 distinct periods, as they made 3 (Pink Flag, Chairs Missing and 154), then broke up, got back together in the mid 80s and made a number of albums (This is my least favorite of their eras) and broke up again, then came back in early 2000s and have now made 3 more albums (Send, Object 47, and Red Barked Tree). For The Jam, I think albums 3-5 (All Mod Cons, Setting Sons, Sound Affects) out of the 6 they made are the ones that stand out.

Savoy - The classic rock stations in STL play music from artists of all colors, certainly including Wilson Pickett. On the other hand, STL may be unusual. Chuck Berry is still alive (he lives in a town about an hour out of STL called Wentzville, where my brother also lives). What's more, he still plays. Regular as clockwork, once a month, at the Duck Room in the Blueberry Hill bar with the occasional holiday show somewhere a little bigger. His Blueberry Hill shows sell out the day they are announced, even though everyone knows he plays every month. Blueberry Hill is an odd bar, at least for STL. The owner, Joe Edwards, is still living in the 1950s-1960s. The walls are covered with posters, album covers, assorted knicknacks from Howdy Doody puppets on through to about 1969, and a big display of old 1950s-1960s comic books, which always makes me sad to see, because he didn't know to get polarized glass, so the sun has bleached out almost all the red colors.

Blueberry Hill is in an area of town (actually mostly in a suburb called University City) that is, essentially, the shopping district / student ghetto for Washington U. Edwards has worked hard for decades to improve what was once a declining slum, and has largely succeeded. The shopping strip is now much safer and more upscale, and has extended east of Skinker Blvd., which was a hardcore slum 20 years ago. His current project, which has been funded and will be soon built, is to put a streetcar line from the U. City part of The Loop down Delmar Blvd. east of Skinker and into Forest Park. Edwards is amazing, and The Loop has become a serious tourist trap, for those whose taste runs back to the 1950s. If you're ever in STL, give me an email or something, and I'll take you there. I imagine you'll enjoy it, especially when I take you to Vintage Vinyl.

And I'm sorry your grandfather was a jackass. You still know more about old music than I ever will. - Brock

OK, this is a demonstration of how it takes me a long time to do a proper job at this analysis.

You may recall, many music posts ago, I said I'd look at Jim Rice's fielding in 1978. Here's how he stacks up under several popular systems:

TotalZone +7 (not his best year with the glove, which comes in 1983, but his third-best; Fangraphs FRAA converts this to a +8)
BPro FRAA +2.8 (not his best year, which comes in 1984, and not even his third-best)
WSAB Fldg +1.7 (which is his second-best year, after 1984)
Humphreys 0 (not his best year, which is a tie between 1977 and 1986; and not even his third-best)

What I did next was to look at the following:

What was the average percentage of Balls in Play Outs that were Outfield Put Outs at the league level and at Boston's level from 1969 to 1978? What perecentag of all Outfield Put Outs were made by the leftfielder. I found the results surprising, given the likelihood that the Wall curtails the number of chances available to a Fenway Park left-fielder. I also compared the league percent of RH PA against that of Boston's, to see if Boston left-fielders were possibly facing an unusally high number of opportunities, given the propensity of batters to pull the ball. Finally, I threw in the total number of put outs by Boston leftfielders.

Something important to note is the sudden jump in put outs in 1975. What happened was that the number made by the centrefielder (Lynn) fell below league norms, after his predecssors had tracked the league rate fairly closely from 1969 through 1974. The interesting thing is that the additional put outs are going to the rightfielder. As a result, the jump in the quantity of put outs is not reflected much in the percentages, where the rate remains around the league norm with the exception of 1977.

Apart from 1969, 1974 and 1975, Boston teams did not have an unusually high or low number of Outfield Put Outs, being within a percentage point of the league average. However, it was only in 1974-7, that Boston leftfielders departed from league Put-Out rate norms. Nonetheless, I anticipated more of an effect from Fenway's wall than is actually seen here.

Rice's bump, in TotalZone and in Humphreys, comes from his arm. Under Humphreys, he'd be a negative fielder but for his success in holding or throwing out runners. And it does seem to be in throwing runners out. Boston LFs led the league in assists in 1978. What's also interesting is that all of their outfield positions do well in assists in 1978. CF and RF are both tied for 3rd in the league. Looking at TotalZone Rof, which is their measure of arm, Rice and Evans both are at +4. Lynn is a 0. Evans and Lynn have exactly the same Hold% according to BB-ref. Evans has the advantage in Kill% 3.6 to 2.2. (Rice leads both of them, 58.9 and 8, respectively.)

Based on all this, it is my suspicion that TotalZone may overrate Rice's range a bit. It also seems to give a lot of value to the ability to kill baserunners, something it shares with Humphreys' system. I have no idea whether this is 'right' or not, if one can use such a term in talking about fielding metrics, but it would make an interesting discussion in the context of 2012's AL MVP election.

fra - That's an interesting analysis. I'd have assumed that Bosox LF had lower rates of fly balls caught than RF, because of the Monster. What your data suggests is different. I'm not quite sure what o make of it yet, but it is certainly worth knowing.

Savoy - I see the distinction you're making, and I would suppose that it's true. It certainly is in STL, but there's a timing issue here. The big Classic Rock station here is KSHE, a FM station that got started in 1967 as one of the first FM acid rock stations in the country (I've seen rock historians rank it as early as second in the country to adopt the format, although I have no idea if this is true). But in any case, the station simply doesn't have any material from earlier than about 1966 to play. They weren't playing oldies in 1967, they were playing all the new acid rock, because their business model allowed them to play all 17 minutes of In-A-Gadda-Da_Vida without a commercial break. As time passed, they held on to that acid rock audience through the horrors of the disco decade, and then have slowly branched out into things like grunge and the pop versions of metal. The actual oldies station (103.3, I've forgotten the call letters) plays a lot of black music from the 1960s, but almost no acid rock at all. So your distinction certainly holds here, but it doesn't really have anything to do with race; it has to do with the timing of FM radio. Before 1967, FM stations were either talk shows or played classical and opera. KSHE was breaking new ground, and then they tried to hold onto that ground. What they never did have was a collection of black songs to play, except for people like Hendrix and Richie Havens. They don't even have any Motown. We do have a "weird music" station, KDHX, 88.1, that will play anything, including whole 4-hour shows of 1940s blues, DJ'd by black guys who actually have serious collections of 1940s blues. I know the guy who used to do their Salsa show before his life got too complicated for him to give that much time. If I were to try to actually hear some of those songs that you listed in your big list, I'd try to find out if they have a R&B show, which would probably include those. I would imagine that there are many cities with stations like KSHE, which play "classic rock" and have very few black artists because acid rock doesn't have many. I have no idea, really, whether there is a race issue there, or just the timing. - Brock

I spent a lot of time this week trying to decide how to properly weight FIP-based pitching and RA-based pitching, which indirectly led to me considering how to handle fielding in general. I think I've struck a balance that I like, and I'm happy with my ballot, although the two Dodger infielders rank a lot higher for me than they do in the consensus. Oh well. For defense I try to look at a combination of the available metrics, but my final ratings tend to be more conservative (ie, within a narrower band with fewer outliers). I also give credit to defenders on good defensive teams, although there can obviously be good defenders on bad teams.

1. Ron Guidry Best pitcher, best player. Great season.2. Jim Rice A very good season, but I have Guidry comfortably ahead (including postseason).3. Davey Lopes Includes his strong postseason. Best NL player; best 2B.4. Ron Cey Best 3B.5. Carlton Fisk Best C.6. Mike Caldwell7. Dave Parker8. Jon Matlack He may be the biggest surprise to me from the MMP project. I think this is the third (fourth?) year he's been on my ballot, which is enough that I may have to take a look at him in HoM voting next year.9. Ted Simmons Close in hitting but I have Fisk as stronger defensively.10. Phil Niekro Obviously my pitching weight doesn't value innings as highly as some systems, or Knucksie would be closer to the top. Nice season, though.11. Graig Nettles12. Greg Luzinski13. Gary Carter Good season for catchers; three on the ballot.

I've participated in many HoM elections in the past. For MMP, the
methodology uses primarily Win Shares, with WAR as a tiebreaker,
and uses positional adjustments, which especially helps catchers.
Please excuse the lack of detailed comments.

Keep in mind, I'm not referring to "oldies" stations. I'm referring to "Classic Rock" stations. the ones that play what is known as "Album Rock."

They are two different and distinct radio formats.

I'll back Savoy up on this one. The only black artist played on classic rock stations in Detroit when I was growing up was Jimi Hendrix. No Wilson Pickett or Sam Cooke or anything like that. Not even Ray Charles. That was the oldies station, not classic rock.

@DL from MN:
This thread got so long I don't think I ever looked through it all and I was skimming through it now to see what I missed and I wanted to reply to your post #65 regarding third basemen and how you have quite a few higher than Doug DeCinces (you also talked about 2B but I haven't looked at that... at least not yet).
My system simply uses various "uber-stats" so I thought I'd compare the leading 3B you mentioned to see how each does in the various systems I use.

Using DeCinces as the focus:
He is tops in brWAR, fgWAR, Win Shares, & WSAB.
In bgWAR he is topped by Schmidt, Brett, & Nettles (and tied with Cey)
In drWARP1 he is topped by Cey, Nettles, & Bando